It
is easily proven that Albert Einstein did not originate the special
theory of relativity in its entirety, or even in its majority.1
The historic record is readily available. Ludwig Gustav Lange,2
Woldemar Voigt,3 George Francis FitzGerald,4 Joseph
Larmor,5 Hendrik Antoon Lorentz,6 Jules Henri
Poincaré,7 Paul Drude,8 Paul Langevin,9
and many others, slowly developed the theory, step by step, and based
it on thousands of years of recorded thought and research. Einstein
may have made a few contributions to the theory, such as the relativistic
equations for aberration and the Doppler-Fizeau Effect,10
though he may also have rendered an incorrect equation for the transverse
mass of an electron, which, when corrected, becomes Lorentz' equation.11

Albert
Einstein's first work on the theory of relativity did not appear until
1905. There is substantial evidence that Albert Einstein did not write
this 1905 paper12 on the "principle of relativity"
alone. His wife, Mileva Einstein-Marity, may have been co-author, or
the sole author, of the work.13

If
Albert Einstein did not originate the major concepts of the special
theory of relativity, how could such a historically significant fact
have escaped the attention of the world for nearly a century? The simple
answer is that it did not. . . .

.
. . in 1927, H. Thirring wrote,

"H.
Poincare had already completely solved the problem of time several
years before the appearance of Einstein's first work (1905). . . ." 48

Sir
Edmund Whittaker in his detailed survey, A History of the Theories
of Aether and Electricity, Volume II, (1953), included a chapter
entitled "The Relativity Theory of Poincare and Lorentz".
Whittaker thoroughly documented the development of the theory, documenting
the authentic history, and demonstrated through reference to primary
sources that Einstein held no priority for the vast majority of the
theory. Einstein offered no counter-argument to Whittaker's famous book.
. .

"I
have now to say some words about the work of these predecessors of
Einstein, mainly of Lorentz and Poincare. [***] Many of you have looked
upon [Einstein's] paper 'Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Korper' in Annalen
der Physik [***] and you will have noticed some pecularities. The
striking point is that it contains not a single reference to previous
literature. It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But
that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true."66